17/11
I think the new boy at our school is a wizard.
Cassian will insist that wizards aren’t real, which is rather odd for someone who likes fantasy stories as much as he does, but I’m sure Ash is magic in some way.
I know, I know! I sound mad, of course I do, but weird things keep happening around us now. Last week something Cassian called an ‘ice spirit’ broke into the school, as you do, and ended up flooding the place. Somehow. Because ice and water aren’t quite the same thing.
But ice is melted by fire, right? And Ash is one, literally called Ash, and two, he’s got red hair. Which is half the reason why I think he’s behind the whole school being flooded by an ice spirit. The other half is that two weeks ago a… minor explosion happened during a Science lesson.
Just, you know, a mild one. Apparently it was entirely Ash’s fault (according to Cassian), or entirely Cassian’s fault (according to Ash)… or maybe the fault of some other kind of ‘spirit’ (according to Elliott, one of the other two people in their group that day, who nobody listened to because the boy has a habit of talking to nobody).
And they all ended up with some rather nasty burns.
Everyone but Ash.
So that’s my rationale. Ash must be some kind of wizard, because how else would that make sense?
Cassian refuses to believe me, obviously, which is why I’m going to prove it.
~ ~ ~
4/12
As it turns out, it’s difficult to prove that your classmate is secretly a wizard.
Well, it’s difficult to prove that the secret-wizard classmate is actually magic. All I’ve managed to prove is that Elliott might not be as crazy as everyone seems to think and Cassian is quite possibly trying to gaslight me into forgetting that magic exists in any capacity.
So… uh, the fact is that I think I saw a ghost yesterday. And Elliott was talking to it — I swear! Which makes so much more sense! But then I told Cassian, because he’s really weird about whether ghosts exist or not, and his response was that he’s starting to think I’m delusional.
I mean, maybe I am… but I don’t think so.
Although come to think of it.
Why does Cassian know so much about ice spirits and the non-existence of wizards?
God, it’s like I solve one mystery and six more pop up in its place. But I’ve got English in five minutes, so I’ll finish writing this up later.
18/12
Uh.
Well, I did say ‘later’, didn’t I? It’s been two weeks, sure, but it is two weeks later.
Yeah, that’s no excuse.
The past two weeks have been rather crazy, alright? Aside from preparing for Christmas, I’ve been busy trying to investigate Cassian and Ash at the same time — made considerably more difficult by the fact that Cassian suddenly insisted on avoiding me like the plague — and finally stumbled onto something two days ago.
Which was rather unhelpful for my actual investigation, but it does prove that magic exists!
I watched a boy turn into a wolf. In the library, of all places. And there was this other kid, couldn’t tell if they were a boy or a girl, with the wolf-boy, and guess what they were wearing?
Yep. A red cloak.
So, like any sensible person would do when confronted with such impossible things, I managed to track Cassian down (admittedly not the hardest thing — he was at one of the outdoor tables, reading a book, as per usual for Library-Boy) and asked him about it.
Completely casually.
And he reacted in an appropriately normal manner — telling me I was a liar before running off in the general direction of the library.
So, my conclusions:
Magic is real, whatever Cassian may tell me.
Cassian is bad at keeping secrets.
And lying.
Ash is far too good at keeping secrets.
But I did catch him setting a book on fire and extinguishing it in almost the same instant, so I’m still pretty certain about his wizard-ness.
Something’s apparently up with fairytales at the minute, and Cassian knows exactly what it is.
And what am I going to do?
Well, keep investigating… after the Christmas holidays, naturally.
“I have never been more excited to visit a post office,” Rowan sighed, drumming his fingers on the bus window. “In fact, I have never been less excited to visit a post office.”
“Because you’ve never visited a post office.”
“Exactly. Say, when did Casey get this smart?”
Casey laughed, leaning over the back of Rowan’s seat and swatting at him. “Bastard.”
“Look, my parents were married—“
“They’re awful people, Rowan.”
Rowan sighed again, tipping his head back to stare up at the peeling adverts all over the bus ceiling. He didn’t say a word to us for the next three stops, and then breathed out an ‘I know’.
We didn’t push it.
Waiting on confirmation that the people we most suspected of being the missing Cross children were, well, the missing Cross children… it had been difficult. Dealing with Rowan’s intermittent silences and outbursts and depressive funks was technically Casey’s strong suit, despite the fact that he was remarkably shit at it all.
I was worse at it, of course. Rowan and I… we were a bad mix. Which made it all the more incredible that so many people thought we were together.
But I was good at being a sort of bodyguard for him, in a way. Even if he blew up at me about not needing a ‘bodyguard’ and then got his ass kicked by a Year Ten within fifteen minutes…
You know.
Perfectly healthy mindset for a barely-teenaged boy, the idea of not needing when you most certainly do need it.
It had been a million times worse when Rowan had been missing, though. I couldn’t imagine what it would have been like for his parents, trying their damned best to keep it all under wraps while Piper Meadowes and whatever-his-real-name-is Casey investigated… I hope they were terrified.
The bus stopped, and Rowan let out a small groan. “I don’t want to know.”
“I think you do.”
“I’d rather not…”
But we dragged him off anyway.
“So, Sable.”
Well, there go my chances of getting out of here. The price my name carries is… is a high one, particularly down here. I’m not the most popular person in the Undercity, funnily enough.
I also can’t talk with this gag in my mouth.
Go figure.
The woman who brought me here — who used the most pathetic attack I’ve ever experienced and still got me in her little corner — laughs when I jerk my head in an attempt to signal that I’d rather like to have a chance to speak. It’s much easier to pretend like you’re begging for mercy when you’re capable of speech. She leans over and brushes a finger over my forehead, making me shudder despite the burning sensation it provides.
Something is… something is off.
But I have a prince to protect and a life to live, and neither parts of that life-plan involve getting sold off for my sort-of ransom price.
I wonder how valuable Lucien would be…
“Oh, Carmen, you think I’m going to risk letting you speak?”
Aha!
She’s a witch! She is an idiot who has the inherent inability to comprehend being able to cast spells without speaking.
Which, go figure, is exactly what I can do.
So like any sane mage-child in the situation I’m in, I let the sparks fly.
𝔸 𝔻𝕒𝕣𝕜 𝕊𝕖𝕔𝕣𝕖𝕥
“Is she alright?”
“I don’t know! Give me a moment, for God’s sake!”
Roxana prodded at Ash’s face, trying to determine whether the girl was actually unconscious or just trying to take a moment. Elara, meanwhile, was calming Danica down — and the youngest sister in turn was lowering the intensity of the whirlwind.
“Do you think we’ve killed her?”
“I… she’s alive?” Roxana leaned back, staring up at Elara’s vaguely concerned expression. “Is Dani alright?”
The nickname felt foreign on her tongue, and she wondered how people used them so easily. It didn’t seem weird when Ash talked about Mars, but it just didn’t sit right with Roxana.
“I’m okay,” Danica breathed, struggling upright. “Sorry about that…”
“Hey, it’s alright!” Elara said quickly — too quickly — pulling Danica into a hug. “None of us are great at controlling this yet, remember?”
“Because Roxy regularly burns the house down.”
Elara didn’t bother opening her mouth to argue — it was true.
“And you’ve only flooded the place once, so… why can’t I handle it at all?”
I left this alone for way too long and just… well. I can’t remember what I was going for, but if I do in the future I’ll finish it off.
“Your full name is Roscoe?”
Rory nodded, her blonde hair falling in front of her face and blocking those sinful golden eyes from my view. “Roscoe Rose, they called me. Awful decision, but there you go, Dad was as creative as ‘rose bush’… why are you shaking?”
I couldn’t believe it. I’d spent years trying to decide whether Rory Alden was really the Aelian I had to find… and I’d gone for it. I’d dragged her on a quest meant for the person I thought she was, learned so much more about the girl I’d never bothered to speak to before, choked down growing feelings that could ruin it all. And I’d fucked it all up by never asking what her name really was.
How did I forget such a simple question?
“We’re doomed,” I told her, looking away from her. “Actually, genuinely doomed. So tell me, why wouldn’t you let me know when the sword burned you?”
“I… it’s not that bad? Look, it’s barely what you can call first-degree.”
I looked at her barely-red palm and found myself frowning. That just didn’t make any sense.
But then again.
Rory matched everything else.
And Elatha like me are meant to either be drawn to Aelian or to other Elatha, kinda like my mothers are… so who was I meant to bring here?
I don’t think I’ve ever seen Jazz so incredibly furious with anyone. And it is quite surprising to see him try to confront anyone about anything.
He’s shaking, he’s so angry. Fists clenched in his blazer pockets, bright spots of red forming in his cheeks, eyes alight with unbridled danger… this is not the Jasper I know.
I think Dad’s actually quite worried. Maybe even scared. Of his eleven year old son, who up until now couldn’t even kill a tiny little bug without feeling horribly guilty.
Now, I’m almost convinced he could kill Dad, though I can’t quite think why.
“What is it?” Mum asks, looking almost as confused as I feel.
“I’ve worked it out,” Jasper says slowly, every syllable laden with an inferno of anger — and fear. “There’s nobody else. It has to be you.”
“You’re still on about this detective business?” Dad laughs, moving a hesitant step closer and grabbing Jazz’s shoulder. “I told you to stop, Jasper. I told you you wouldn’t like what you found.”
“I don’t. You’re not even wrong about that, and I hate you for it.”
“What… did you find, Jazz?” I asked, glancing at the half-open door where Charlie and Imogen were blatantly listening in on the conversation.
“I found Tori’s murderer, of course,” he sighed, giving me a strangely exasperated look. “What did you think I was looking for, Evie?”
“Your sister wasn’t murdered.”
“We both know you’re lying.”
“Are you trying to insinuate that I killed Tori?” Dad asked, voice carrying a genuine-sounding surprise.
Jasper didn’t answer.
“I would have had to have a very good reason to kill my own daughter, you know.”
“Since you’re cheating on Mum, and Tori knew full well that you were doing that, I’d say you had a pretty damn good reason for murdering her. And you had the perfect opportunity — you’re the only person who could have done it, unless you really want to tell me that Miss Hart did it.”
“So you admit someone else had the opportunity?”
“Miss Hart? Couldn’t say boo to a goose, and would have no reason to kill Tori. She hardly even knew her. But Tori could have ruined you, couldn’t she?”
It’s surreal.
This just isn’t… it doesn’t make sense.
“Well,” Mum says, snapping out of her brief daze. “Well. Andrew, what on Earth do you have to say for yourself now?”
“He’s insane!”
It was such a pathetic response that I couldn’t help laughing a bit. Jasper was accusing him of murder — and it sounded horribly real — but his big argument was that Jazz was crazy.
“I’m not even the first person to suggest it,” Jasper said quietly. “And I defended you. I told her that there was no way you could have done it, because you loved her. Love us all… I don’t know how I could have been so wrong.”
The smile that crept onto Dad’s face was horrific.
“Do you know how I first wanted to shut Tori up?”
Stop using that nickname.
You don’t get to call her Tori anymore.
Jasper nodded, but I knew he was lying.
“So you know how little I care for you.”
“Naturally. In case you’ve forgotten, I’ve got a scar to prove it.”
“You should be the one in that grave,” Dad spat, making Mum gasp and one of the twins scream outside.
“Then you should have just killed me.” The lack of fear in Jasper’s voice was almost as terrifying as what Dad was saying. “And then you could have kept this from crashing down, and you wouldn’t have had to hurt Adrian. Or Tori. I don’t understand why you didn’t take the easy way out, because you’ve lost everything now.”
“Because she would have known he killed you, wouldn’t she?”
I couldn’t help leaping in. Hearing things like that come out of anyone’s mouth, least of all my almost-twin’s… it made me feel ill. Especially in that done-with-it-all sort of voice.
“The motive is the same either way you slice it,” I continued, for lack of anything else to say. “Shut Tori up, because she knows what Dad’s been up to. But then Tori would have to be told that Dad’s willing to go as far as murdering his own kids to keep her quiet. And she’d inevitably turn him in, because we all know you adored each other.”
Dad practically snarled and moved his hand to Jasper’s throat.
And then he began to squeeze.
I can’t quite remember how I ended up in here. But here I am, trying not to look at myself in the mirror and about ten seconds from bawling my eyes out.
It’s been three-and-a-half weeks since Tori died and I don’t think I’ve really, actually cried yet.
But I just can’t stand it anymore.
Evie moved into the dorms immediately after the funeral, telling us that sleeping in that room without our sister was going to be horrible for her without her saying a word, and then Mum insisted that I move into the room in place of them both — that way they could use what was my room as some kind of little storage cupboard. And really, it was only ever fit for that.
Which means… well. Now I’m half-convinced that I hear Tori’s voice when I’m in that space between waking and sleeping, and sometimes I hear Evie too. Two ghosts, pretty much, and Evie isn’t even dead!
It’s almost silent in the bathroom, totally silent if you ignore my shaky breathing and that awful sound shoes make on… whatever the floor is. It’s almost silent, and I don’t like it. I feel like it’s getting under my skin — whatever ‘it’ even is.
So I ramble. Mostly about my insane desire to have Tori back, because I know that nobody can fulfil that wish, but then it turns to Evie and how Mum and Dad seem to have already brushed the whole thing aside even though it’s their child who died and—
“Jesus Christ, Jazz, shut up already.”
There is one person in this school — in the world — who I allow to call me Jazz.
It’s Evie.
But she wouldn’t be in the boys’ bathroom during class.
However… there are five other people who know the nickname. Mum, Dad, Charlie, Imogen… and Tori.
I never did like Tori calling me that, though she sometimes did anyway. And here she is, despite being very much dead, doing it again.
“Tori…?”
“Yeah,” the ghost (because what else could she be?) mutters, and I turn around to see…
Well, it’s Tori.
She’s obviously a little more translucent than the average human — which is, you know, not at all — and she seems rather washed-out, but the apparition in front of me is still my sister.
“Ghosts are real, then?” It’s a stupid thing to say, but half of what I’ve been saying to people recently probably sounds crazy.
“Of course!” She twirls around, letting me catch a glimpse of her shattered skull, and then sighs. “I’m not meant to be here, like as in talking to you, but you did seem pretty desperate… and you’re literally in a school bathroom, anyone could walk in.”
“Fair point,” I mumble. “So, uh. Are you allowed to tell me how you died or…?”
“I wish! But no, you get what everyone else gets, brother dear.”
I have to know how it happened, though.
I’ve been reading her diaries, hiding them from Mum and Dad and the twins, and she went into that tower a hundred times. She was careful, she always wrote that she was ‘dead careful’, and yet… she fell.
And I have to admit that I kinda doubt it’s as simple as that.
I have the one person who knows exactly what happened in front of me, and I can’t ask.
Unless…
“Can I ask how you felt…? Falling?”
“I…” She frowned at me, cocking her head to one side. “I can’t tell you that, Jazz. You’ll have nightmares.”
“I already do.”
“Then you’ll have worse ones!”
“Why are you still here?”
Tori sighs. “I want someone to know what happened so badly… I want someone to hurt. And I can’t do that, because I can’t tell you anything!”
There were three rational explanations. Accident, suicide, murder. Now there’s two: suicide and murder.
Suicide would mean her classmates, most likely. Murder… means her killer.
Both explanations are possibilities Mum and Dad refused to consider.
And I might be able to get a hint to which explanation is right…
“Who did it?” I ask quickly, watching her eyes widen.
“I can’t tell you!” she shrieks, and then vanishes again.
Leaving me alone, knowing more than before.
Because someone killed my big sister, and if I truly want her to rest in peace… well.
Isn’t there only one option here?
I have to find out who murdered Victoria Gill.
Should be simple enough, right…?
“Jasper?”
Damn it.
“Camille!”
It’s insane, actually. Just a few short weeks after my parents died and this is where we are.
I’m about to die too, aren’t I?
Hazel knows who my parents were, what they did, and nobody has any hope of killing Blue. The three of us make up the oldest children in White Orchid, if we ignore Ash… which I don’t really want to do.
It’s the fact that between the four of us — because we are the only real choices Mrs Carter can make — I am the new one. And also the fact that Blue is a lot more robot than human, and Hazel’s nature would cause problems with most execution methods, and Ash has been here for years. There is no way Mrs Carter could send him off.
So there’s my death warrant.
I drag my feet down the stairs, trying to calm myself down a bit. Don’t let them see how terrified you are about all of this… and you’ll be fine.
But when I walk into the kitchen, I smell gas.
Hazel doesn’t say anything, pressing two things into my hand before twisting round to look round at the rest of the room’s occupants. There’s a funny sort of glow around Blue and Ash and whichever ten-year-old they’ve dragged into all of this. Some kind of spell, obviously.
And Hazel’s not actually glowing at all.
She waves her hand close to the burner and then snaps her fingers — giving the rest of us just enough time to spot the tiny flame that sparks on the tip of her index before the world explodes.
I’m not sure what spell she used. But it changes what should be a death sentence into the strangest mix of burning and freezing, before there’s a twist of something deep inside and the air clears.
Blue is the first to speak, given that she’s not half-choking to death like Hazel is, and Ash and the younger boy were apparently not informed of much of the plan either. They seem almost as stunned as I am.
“They’re not going to look for us?”
Hazel shakes her head, presses a hand to her mouth and pulls it away stained awfully red. “N-nope. Don’t think this place still exists, actually…”
“What… was that?”
“Oh, faking our deaths. Didn’t really plan to get so many of us out of there but frankly Hazel’s technically on the run and there’s some kind of destruction order on my head and there’s supposedly reason to believe you three are in similar sorts of danger… yeah.”
I’ve never heard the cyborg talk quite so much.
“So why didn’t you use that funny magic on yourself, Hazel?”
“Oh, haven’t you heard? Witches don’t burn.”
I… can’t quite work out what just took place. Insanity, of course, but… well.
I suppose I’m not dead. Not for a while, at the very least.
I don’t know what I was thinking, honestly…
Elliott couldn’t always see ghosts. Or rather, he wasn’t born with the ability. Nowadays he can pretty much always see ghosts if he chooses — which is quite confusing, isn’t it?
The thing is, Elliott’s ability came from almost drowning seven years ago, and I never experienced anything even remotely similar over the last… roughly six-and-a-half years of our lifetime, I guess? So I have to leave the actual psychic part of things to him. The seeing and hearing ghosts, seeing and hearing literal demons, actually getting possessed by said literal demons… god, it’s all completely terrifying to hear about after-or-during the fact. I can’t imagine what it’s like to be him.
I couldn’t imagine what it was like to be him, at least.
“Look what I managed to get!” Elliott said when it came time to open our presents on our fourteenth birthday, holding up a small unwrapped box. His eyes seemed to glow for a split-second, and he grimaced, but forced a ‘real’ smile almost immediately.
I took the box and opened it to reveal a pair of glasses. Hilarious, because it was Elliott who needed glasses. My vision had always been fine. They didn’t look particularly interesting — just simple pound-shop reading glasses — but something had to be different about them.
Mum and Dad both looked as confused as I felt.
“How nice,” Dad said slowly. “I’m sure Oliver will make good use of them.”
“That’s the point, Dad!” Elliott groaned, as if we all knew what the gift was. “Come on, put them on! I want to make sure they work!”
Well, it couldn’t hurt to try them on, could it?
So I did — and then found myself screaming.
The world had gone grey, with only a handful of things still visible in colour. Elliott was still just Elliott (and grinning like a total psycho, given my reaction), and our parents eyes still held their colour… but what looked like a monster was standing just behind my twin. And it looked like it wanted to murder him.
And it probably could, too.
“Take it they ‘work’?” Mum whispered.
“Look behind you, Oliver,” Elliott laughed, as if this were all a funny joke.
“What do you mean, ‘look behind you’? Look behind you!”
Elliott had managed to make these glasses allow someone like me to see what he could see — just with no choice in the matter. Which might make our lives a little easier in future… okay, it was actually a pretty clever gift.
I was still completely horrified by what I could see.
“Hm?” Elliott twisted his head round to look up at the creature and then went completely white. “Oh. Okay then… maybe we should move this else-?”
A shadow of a claw-like finger crept across Elliott’s neck and went startlingly black for a few seconds. When it returned to its half-transparent state, he collapsed to the floor without a sound.
I was half convinced he was dead, but leaning over to check let me know that he was still pretty much conscious — if a little bit absent.
God.
Would this be worse without the glasses? Not knowing what just happened until he could explain it afterwards? Or would that be better?
I didn’t even know.
And I realised I might just prefer it the way things usually are.
With Elliott seeing the supernatural things, and me helping him not get killed by about a third of them on an almost-weekly basis.
Probably for the best that only one of us actually has these abilities, in the end.
Wren
~
I don’t quite remember how it came out, but everything went to hell when it did. Rowan screamed at our parents, and they screamed right back at him, and nothing good came of any of that…
The argument lasted for what felt like hours — with the loudest part of all being Rowan’s almost-shriek about his twin’s name — and the whole time I stayed in my room. Door closed.
At one point I might have tried hiding under my pillow.
It didn’t help.
Rowan would come to me later in the week, dragging his boyfriend (who I’d never met before, and actually hadn’t heard a word about, which meant it was impossibly serious) along and using the poor boy as a glorified tissue box. He’d tell me what the words ‘you have an identical twin’ felt like to him, and I don’t know if I’ll ever understand the analogy he used.
“Like being ripped in half, Wren,” he whispered, voice muffled by Olly’s shoulder.
Isn’t that… ironic? I’m sure if I was told I had a twin — sister or brother, I don’t care — I’d feel more like the ‘missing half I didn’t know was missing’ had just been found.
I don’t know.
I really don’t know.
Rowan
~
Constant. Absolute constant comparison to a boy who doesn’t exist.
They ‘invented’ River years ago, Dad said — a perfect boy who did everything right, in order to show me that nothing stopped me from doing the same. And while five-year-old Rowan didn’t question why their hypothetical needed a name, fourteen-year-old Rowan was hating it.
Had they had contact with River’s ‘parents’? Of course they had.
Did River know that I existed? Always!
And maybe the ‘perfect boy’ and I were meant to have a meeting next week.
But I still hated the very idea of him. Or maybe it was the idea that my efforts to be Mum and Dad’s image of perfection were useless, because they were comparing me to someone I had no hope of being. They were comparing me to someone who did exist.
That made it all the worse.
What I had become in the nine years since the ‘perfect’ boy’s creation was such a lie… and what had it even been for? Had I ever been able to live up to their expectations?
I hated them.
And I was prepared to despise River.
